Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sportacus wasn’t proud of the way he left home.

The divorce had left a hole in his heart as well as Stephanie's and they both agreed that they didn’t want to be there, so they moved. It was a hasty decision, but Sportacus never regretted it for a minute. He was happy in Lazytown, and so was his daughter.

A knock at the door and Stephanie shouting "It's Uncle Ithro!" was enough for Sportacus to remember how he left things.

At first, Sportacus nearly jumped for joy to be able to see his brother again, and then a feeling of dread fell over him when he remembered what he had done. He moved away and left his brother with no information beside an address and a phone number.

It took Ithro this long to show up. He must have been angry, or hurt.

Sportacus expected a lecture, but he definitely didn’t expect for his brother to grab him and pull him into a strong, warm hug and ruffle his hair like he was still a kid. Knowing Ithro, he really should have seen that coming.

"I came to visit you two for a while!" He said enthusiastically. "Show me what I've missed since you've been gone!"

Sportacus was fine with having his brother crash on his couch for a couple of days. Stephanie adored him and he was helpful around the house. If entertaining him meant that they could avoid the inevitable "What were you thinking?" conversation, then he could do that.

"How is everything back home?" Sportacus asked on the third morning as he and Ithro ate breakfast.

"Great!"

Sportacus raised an eyebrow. That was all he had gotten out of his brother, even when it had been over half a year since they'd last seen each other.

Sportacus was starting to get tired of one-word answers when he asked about Ithro's life. He continued to tell himself that he really owed Ithro this time with them, with the way he left things and all, but he knew when his brother was keeping a something from him.

Everything was stirred up that evening when Ithro and Stephanie had walked into the coffee shop just as Sportacus was sharing a kiss with the man he loved. He pulled away, much to Robbie's displeasure.

"Hey! Wha-?" Sportacus must have looked like a deer in headlights because Robbie followed his gaze.

"Hey, Robbie!" Stephanie greeted.

Robbie offered a distracted, "Hi, kiddo." In return as his eyes darted between the two brothers.

Sportacus cleared his throat. "Robbie this is my brother Ithro." He couldn't help but wince as he watched his brother give Robbie's hand a death grip and a hearty shake.

"It's nice to meet you, Robbie. How do you know my brother?"

Robbie swallowed.

------

"I don’t like him," Ithro said as soon as his brother dragged him outside. Robbie and Stephanie were still inside the shop, no doubt watching and making spectator comments.

"You don’t know him!"

"Do you?! Since when do you start dating someone without telling me?"

Sportacus stared, speechless at Ithro's attitude. He could count on one hand the number of arguments he and Ithro had had in their adult life. Neither of them were bad-tempered people and they both liked to avoid conflict whenever possible. Now, Sportacus could feel the argument rising, an argument that had been cooking since he left home and moved without so much as saying goodbye.

"I didn’t want you to think that I was-"

"Rushing?"

"Yes. Because I'm not. And I'm not a child anymore you can't decide who I'm in a relationship with."

Ithro made a sour face. "But this guy is-"

"Don’t you dare."

"And you're-"

"Don't!"

"You could have done so much better."

"Ithro!" Sportacus yelled.

He glanced back into the window of the shop where Robbie and Stephanie looked one second away from grabbing popcorn and pulling up a chair.

"You don’t get to decide," He repeated simply. "I'm sorry, but this is my life now. And if you can't accept that then… then you can leave, okay?" Just saying it left a bad taste in his mouth and he regretted it. He didn’t want Ithro to leave, he just wanted him to be alright with who he was, where he was, and most importantly, who he was with.

Ithro cleared his throat. Sportacus knew that look on his face. Here comes the secret, he thought. The thing Ithro had been hiding from him since he showed up.

"Actually, I- uh… I can't."

"What do you mean?"

That was how Sportacus learned that his brother was unemployed, down on his luck, and needed a place to stay.

"You're always welcome in our house, you know that! I only wish you would have told me, Ithro."

Ithro scoffed. "Yes, you know all about telling people, right Sportacus?"

He had a point.

It only took a couple minutes of thinking before Sportacus told him that he could stay for as long as he needed to if he continued to help as much as he had been.

"You bet!"

-----

Sportacus and Stephanie ate dinner at Robbie's every Sunday, and Ithro insisted he tag along. Sportacus wasn’t sure if Robbie agreed to the extra company because he wanted to get to know Ithro, or if he was just too confused to say no.

"You didn’t tell me you had a brother…" Robbie said as he eyed the muscular man in his living room, who was currently playing a dance video game with the kids and looking absolutely ridiculous.

 He slid some carrots and celery along with a knife and a cutting board to his boyfriend and Sportacus immediately began slicing while Robbie mixed some other ingredients on the stove.

"It never came up?" Sportacus offered with a sheepish smile.

Robbie scoffed. "Mhm. I know you don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff but I would have liked a little warning, you know."

Sportacus nodded and gave a weak chuckled. "So would I. Um Robbie, do you need that much butter?"

"Always. You've got your fresh vegetables you insisted on, let me have my butter." Robbie leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Glanni came down the stairs and all but gasped when he looked into the living room. Ithro was still doing his best keeping up with the girls' dance moves.

"Who is that?"

Robbie nodded toward Sportacus, and Glanni's eyes widened as he made the connection.

"Sportacus, is that your brother?"

"Yes it is!"

Robbie couldn’t help but smirk as he glanced at his older brother. "He's visiting town for a while."

"Indefinitely," Sportacus corrected. He slid the sliced vegetables toward Robbie.

"Huh. Interesting."

"Glanni…" Robbie watched him out of the corner of his eye. "You're staring."

"Yes. Yes I am." He cleared his throat. "So uh, when's dinner?"

Chapter Text

Robbie tried not to stare, but Ithro looked so much like his brother, and he was eating an unholy amount of pot pie. Apparently Glanni couldn’t stop staring either. Glanni grunted when Robbie kicked him under the table, sending a glare his way. The rest of the dinner went about the same and they all seemed relieved when it was over.

"That was the most awkward dinner I've ever had. Your brother hates me." He handed off the washed dishes for Sportacus to rinse and dry, stealing a glance into the living room where Ithro was playing an enthusiastic game of superheroes with the kids. Glanni looked to be captured under a blanket that was serving as their 'villain-trapping net'.

Sportacus chuckled. "He doesn’t hate you! Ithro doesn’t hate anyone!"

"Except for me," Robbie grunted.

"He only needs to get to know you, Robbie."

That didn’t seem to be the case.

The rest of the night was just as awkward and while Robbie did everything to get Ithro to like him, it was looking like a lost cause. They had quiet conversation while the girls wound down and ended up lounging on the floor with drawing supplies.

It wasn’t until Stephanie and Ella had fallen asleep that they realized how late it was.

"We'd better get going," Sportacus said as they rose from the couch, kissing Robbie on the cheek and scooping up his sleeping kid. "I'm pretty tired too."

Robbie chuckled at Stephanie, who was out like a light in her father's arms. Knowing Sportacus, he was probably planning to carry her the entire walk home. "Really? You? Tired?"

"Well it's probably because Ithro snores!" Sportacus joked as he gave his brother a pointed look. "I can hear him all the way from my bedroom!"

"I do not snore! You've just been working non-stop. Come on, let's go."

"He also gets cranky when he hasn’t slept."

It took all Robbie had not to laugh, because the kids were asleep and not because Ithro's frighteningly blue eyes were staring into his soul.

-----

"I can take her if your arms are getting tired."

"Oh, thank you." Sportacus carefully passed her to Ithro, yawning. It was dark out, their path only lit by the town's old street lamps. He couldn’t wait to get home and put Stephanie to bed. They were hardly halfway home and he was already ready to crash for the night.

"You must be really tired. When's the last time you've been to the gym?"

"I exercise every day, Ithro."

"You're just looking a little worn is all. Maybe you need a proper workout. Want to go tomorrow?"

Sportacus raised an eyebrow at his brother. What was he doing? "I work tomorrow."

"Some other day, then. I've been eager to go! I’d say we could invite Robbie, but I'm sure he gets plenty of exercise selling ice cream."

Sportacus didn’t dignify that with a response. Ithro was always like this - protective, intense… and if it still went on, Sportacus wasn’t sure what was going to happen. He wanted both Ithro and Robbie in his life, he needed them. He just hoped the entire thing would work itself out and the two would get used to each other.

-----

Robbie hated Mondays with a passion.

Nothing good happened on a Monday and this one was no different, he learned that when he got a phone call from the school.

"This! This is why children shouldn’t be allowed to throw balls at each other at school!" Robbie growled into the phone as he walked Ella in the house.

Her hands were preoccupied holding the ice pack to her head, so she just shrugged his hand off of his shoulder with a growl of her own. She wasn’t too fazed by the injury itself, but was getting increasingly irritated by her father's fussing. 

"It's only a game, Robbie," Sportacus said over the phone. The calmness of his voice just angered Robbie further. Not at Sportacus necessarily, but at the situation, at his kid getting hurt because no one was paying attention.

"Yeah, a game. I can tell you never suffered in gym."

There was a breath from the other end which could only have been a sigh.

He held the phone between his shoulder and ear while he retrieved an ice pack from the freezer. Ella rolled her eyes when he switched them out in her hand and guided it to her head.

"I can do it myself," Ella huffed. Robbie just nodded a halfhearted acknowledgement patted her head, earning himself another eye roll.

Sportacus chuckled."It sounds like she's just fine."

Robbie had to admit, Ella did seem fine outside of the bump on her head and a little sluggishness. He told her to go lie on the couch while he grabbed some Tylenol, and she complied, if just to get out of the same room as him for a second.

"Yes, but that's not the point. The PE teacher at that school is- well, he's old, Sport. He throws the kids into the gym with some equipment, gives them a few instructions, and goes back into his office!" The truth was that the man needed to retire, and he had needed to retire since Ella first started school.

"Really? Are you sure?"

"That's what the girls have said," Robbie said as he stood in the bathroom and rummaged around in the medicine cabinet until he found the children's Tylenol. "And it wouldn’t surprise me. This isn't the first time Ella's been ganged up on," Although it was the first time that it had resulted in his daughter getting a concussion. His blood started boiling at the thought.

Robbie knew that Ella's incidents at school weren’t all self-defense. She did occasionally take out frustration on other kids and it was wrong, he knew it. From what he heard, however, Ella wasn’t the only kid getting picked on during gym class.

Robbie heard the bell of the coffee shop door on Sportacus' end."Oh, I need to go. We'll probably be over tonight, though! Love you!"

"Yeah, yeah." Robbie sighed. He squinted and read the dosages on the back of the bottle.

"And Robbie?"

"Mhm?"

"Maybe you should calm down a little bit…?"

His kid was hurt and Sportacus expected him to calm down? Robbie was about to give a snarky reply, but he realized how fast his heart was racing and freaking out probably wasn’t doing Ella any favors when she already wasn’t in the best of moods. Maybe Sportacus was right.

"Yeah," He sighed out. "I'll try. Love you too."

Robbie was relieved that Ella didn’t try to move from her spot on the couch. She even let him sit with her after a while and she ended up leaned on his shoulder, too out of it to pay attention to the TV and too stubborn to nap.

Glanni walked in and smiled sympathetically at the sight before him. Robbie had texted him earlier with the basics, and by the covered containers in his hand, he came prepared.

"What little monster do I have to threaten for knocking my niece in the head?" He carefully inspected the bump, but got a grumpy groan in return as Ella pushed his arm away. "Aw, don’t be like that. Look what I have!"

The container of her favorite ice cream, held in front of her with dramatic flourish, got Ella to raise her head off of her father's shoulder and reach for the blessed dessert.

"Oh, and I brought you some too."

Robbie accepted it, but while spewing sarcasm. "Ah, perfect. I was going to make dinner, but why bother since we have ice cream?"

Glanni shrugged. "Nothing wrong with dessert first, right, Ella?"

"M'mm!" She shook her head, shoveling another spoonful into her mouth.

Who was Robbie to deny his kid the first that had improved her mood today? He might as well give in and ruin his appetite before dinner, even if Sportacus wouldn’t approve.

knock knock

Ah! Speak of the devil!

…and he brought his brother, too. Wonderful.

Glanni was far too enthusiastic when he went to answer the door, and Robbie tried to avoid looking at the three as they walked in, just in case he and Ithro had awkward eye contact.

"We brought dinner! ...looks like you've already got some though!" Sportacus said with a laugh.

Ithro judged Robbie and only him, staring into his soul once more. "Ice cream. Hm."

Robbie so desperately wanted to respond with something snarky, but he knew better in front of the kids, and-

"You're just jealous you didn’t get ice cream for dinner!"

…and Glanni did it instead. Robbie watched his brother give the girls a little wink and they giggled. The last thing any of them wanted was for Stephanie and Ella to sense conflict going on between them. God knew how much conflict those kids had already witnessed with their dads' divorces.

Ithro smirked. "Well I-"

Whatever smart response he was ready to offer was interrupted by a cough. Robbie recognized a cough like that, and so did Ithro apparently.

"That doesn’t sound good," Robbie said, wincing as Sportacus coughed again. "Are you feeling okay?"

Sportacus gave a reassuring smile, but it wasn’t so reassuring when Robbie saw the redness of his cheeks. He didn’t have to ask again when Stephanie reached for his forehead and gasped.

"Dad! You're really warm!"

Ithro's hand replaced hers and he frowned. "No wonder you’ve been so tired lately, with a fever like that…"

Sportacus pulled away and shrunk under everyone's gaze. He chuckled nervously, "I'm just warm from the walk here. Exercise does that to you! Really, there's no need to worry." He took the takeout to the kitchen and began pulling out plates before anyone had a chance to argue with him.

Ithro and Robbie exchanged equally-worried looks.

-----

Sportacus didn’t eat much. Ithro watched his brother do nothing with his food but push it around and pretend to be interested in it. He knew his brother well, maybe not so much in recent years, but he did know what his baby brother acted like when he wasn’t feeling well. Robbie was watching him just as closely, while that Glanni guy was off letting the girls do his makeup, having finished eating quickly.

It wasn’t until another painful coughing fit that either Ithro or Robbie tried to approach the subject again. And by approach, of course that meant ram into it.

"Okay, that's it." Robbie threw his silverware onto his plate and felt Sportacus' cheek, tutting and sighing. "You should be in bed."

Sportacus cleared his presumably sore throat, wincing. "But-!"

"Ah, ah! Not another word. Stay there, I'm getting the thermometer."

Sportacus didn’t try to argue, only huffing in irritation as a thermometer was stuck under his tongue and Robbie was off again finding some medicine. He looked at his brother with pleading eyes, as if he would actually try to help Sportacus convince someone he wasn’t sick when he very obviously was. Ithro scoffed.

"He's right, Sport. You should be in bed."

Sportacus rolled his eyes with a sniffle. Stuffed nose, too - Ithro added it to the list of symptoms. This looked to be the very beginning of something miserable, and Ithro couldn’t believe-

"You went to work today!"

Sportacus was caught. He tried to give his defense as soon as Robbie returned and pulled the beeping thermometer from his mouth.

"I didn’t feel as bad this morning! It was just a little temperature!"

"You went to work… when you knew you were running a fever…" Robbie looked at him like he was crazy, which he could have been. Ithro couldn’t believe his brother. Of course Sportacus would go to work with a temp, especially with Stephanie to support, because he was still under the impression that he had to do everything himself.

Sportacus wasn’t alone anymore. Ithro decided, while he watched his grumpy and sick brother being given a dosage of medicine, that maybe this lazy guy wasn’t too bad after all.